From speaking to individuals involved in the field, I believe the people Open Phil spoke to did not offer enough information to form a full vision toward near-term cost reduction. This is likely the result of a combination of three things:
Some of the people who they spoke to did not have in-depth technical familiarity with the particular technological advancements required to bring the cost down.
Some of the people who they spoke to may have had access to such information but were unwilling to share it in-depth with the Open Phil researchers for obvious reasons (namely, they work at companies with proprietary information).
There are a number of individuals with such in-depth knowledge who Open Phil did not speak to, whether because they did not reach out to them or for other reasons.
Researchers have in fact provided accounts that were satisfactory to either private donors with access to the information or VC funds backing private ventures in the space. These accounts are usually not public; however, GFI has begun to and will continue to explain publicly exactly how cost reduction can happen. For example, at a recent conference, two GFI scientists each gave a presentation explaining exactly how we are going to bring the cost of media down and detailing the other plausible technical advances necessary to bring costs down over the coming years. GFI will likely continue to publish such materials moving forward.
I have proposed betting above. If you believe clean meat has low odds of succeeding, perhaps you can make some money off of me.
Researchers have in fact provided accounts that were satisfactory to either private donors with access to the information or VC funds backing private ventures in the space.
OpenPhil has given a million dollars to GFI.
I would hope that in future this information will reach OpenPhil, as it is spending in the 8-figure range on factory farming (given a good account, it seems like an exceptionally high-return fundraising thing to do, for example), and look forward to seeing what happens with that.
I have proposed betting above. If you believe clean meat has low odds of succeeding.
I’m trying to create a meeting of the minds or such between OpenPhil and those who disagree with its perception of the cost feasibility. Ideally I would like to see agreements or quantified disagreement along those lines.
I’m raising the issue to see what is offered up, and because there is a clear inefficiency (at least one party is wrong and lots of money would change allocation either way), so addressing that looks disproportionately valuable (and cheap VOI generally comes ahead of implementation).
After I see the back-and-forth I may make a forecast myself.
From speaking to individuals involved in the field, I believe the people Open Phil spoke to did not offer enough information to form a full vision toward near-term cost reduction. This is likely the result of a combination of three things:
Some of the people who they spoke to did not have in-depth technical familiarity with the particular technological advancements required to bring the cost down.
Some of the people who they spoke to may have had access to such information but were unwilling to share it in-depth with the Open Phil researchers for obvious reasons (namely, they work at companies with proprietary information).
There are a number of individuals with such in-depth knowledge who Open Phil did not speak to, whether because they did not reach out to them or for other reasons.
Researchers have in fact provided accounts that were satisfactory to either private donors with access to the information or VC funds backing private ventures in the space. These accounts are usually not public; however, GFI has begun to and will continue to explain publicly exactly how cost reduction can happen. For example, at a recent conference, two GFI scientists each gave a presentation explaining exactly how we are going to bring the cost of media down and detailing the other plausible technical advances necessary to bring costs down over the coming years. GFI will likely continue to publish such materials moving forward.
I have proposed betting above. If you believe clean meat has low odds of succeeding, perhaps you can make some money off of me.
OpenPhil has given a million dollars to GFI.
I would hope that in future this information will reach OpenPhil, as it is spending in the 8-figure range on factory farming (given a good account, it seems like an exceptionally high-return fundraising thing to do, for example), and look forward to seeing what happens with that.
I’m trying to create a meeting of the minds or such between OpenPhil and those who disagree with its perception of the cost feasibility. Ideally I would like to see agreements or quantified disagreement along those lines.
I’m raising the issue to see what is offered up, and because there is a clear inefficiency (at least one party is wrong and lots of money would change allocation either way), so addressing that looks disproportionately valuable (and cheap VOI generally comes ahead of implementation).
After I see the back-and-forth I may make a forecast myself.
[Writing only for myself.]
Carl, I’d be really interested in seeing any content originating from these discussions.
Michael, Which conference is this? Are there any videos available for these talks?
Video is not available, although I heard it might be at some point in the future.
Cool, can you give me the conference name? That way I can follow-up with a Google search in a few weeks or months.
The title of the conference was Second International Conference on Cultured Meat.
Related article: https://www.clearlyveg.com/blog/2016/11/13/reflections-the-second-international-conference-cultured-meat
Thanks.